Poe Illuminating the Obvious: Dark

Poe

Illuminating the Obvious: Dark Humor and Macabre Guilt in the Works of Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe is known for being the progenitor of the mystery story and for being one of America's most darkly imaginative authors. His most famous pieces are undoubtedly his poem "The Raven" and his short story "The Tell Tale Heart," both of which have figured prominently in popular culture for the past century. They also contain two of the major themes that appear throughout much of Poe's work -- grief and guilt, specifically as they relate to death. Poe's genius is certainly not in the originality of is themes; many of his stories involve very similar incidents and large over-arching concepts. Instead, it is the way that Poe develops these themes and concepts that makes his work so memorable and so engaging; his exploration of death, grief, and guilt is both humorous and profound.

This is very observable in one of Poe's lesser known yet most wickedly enjoyable stories, "The Cask of Amontillado." In this story, the narrator lures an erstwhile friend of his that has caused him some unknown insult to him into his wine cellar, where he is walled into a small alcove and left to die. This finds a clear resonance in another of his stories, "The Black Cat." Here, the narrator hides the body of his murdered wife behind the wall in his cellar, where she is discovered by the police. Both of these stories explore themes of wealth, power, murder, and guilt in ways that are surprisingly fresh even over a century after they were written, and that clearly resonate with certain aspects of Poe's life (Matthiessen). Through the bizarre, the ironically humorous, and unexpected feelings of guilt, Poe's characters and stories reflect the author's own bitterness regarding many details of his life.

The bizarre is very clearly evident in "The Cask of Amontillado," where the murder victim is dressed in motley with bells -- a jester's outfit, as we might think of it today. The desire for revenge against the wealthy and foolish is something that Poe carried throughout much of his life, following his adoption but lack of inheritance from a wealthy benefactor (Matthiessen 179). By dressing Fortunato in this ridiculous costume, the theme of his foolishness as well as the macabre nature of his death is developed and heightened. In "The Black Cat," the narrator's murder of his wife comes near the very end of the story and results in very little guilt, though it is actually central to the narrator's position throughout the story (Reilly 94). The theme of guilt is instead brought about by the narrator's murder of a cat, which seems to haunt him in various fantastical ways.

There is a vicious sort of humor in the final appearance of the cat -- or a cat -- in the story. Having murdered one cat and trying to kill another -- and killing his wife instead -- the narrator accidentally bricks the cat into the wall, and it is the cat's yowling that attracts the police. The irony here is that the crime he failed to commit -- the killing of this cat -- led to the narrator's doom. The irony is heightened in "The Cask of Amontillado" because the entire time the narrator, who is looking back on the incident fifty years later, evinces no lack of confidence or surety until the very end, where his feelings of guilt become suddenly and drastically clear. Even though the ultimate end of the story is pretty much foretold at the beginning as far as plot is concerned, the internal effects on the narrator create an ending that is ironically more unnerving than his external actions (Henninger 35).

Both of these stories also clearly illustrate the way guilt and punishment necessarily follow crime. The narrators of both stories end up feeling guilty for their actions, and both are surprised by their fates. In "The Black Cat," the narrator acts impulsively in each of his murderous acts, and even at the end is left feeling somewhat shocked by the turn of events -- but guilt and punishment find him even when he least expects it. In The Cask of Amontillado," the narrator is anything but surprised by his actions -- he shows himself to be a very capable and cool-headed murderer, which is why he gets away with his dastardly deed (Baraban 48). But despite the length of his planning and the careful execution of his plot, the narrator still finds himself with noticeable feelings of guilt -- it is an inescapable facet of human existence, in the world of Poe's story.